No one dreams of a White Halloween. But the highway salt trucks arrived before the trick-or-treaters this year, as a nor'easter blasted parts of New Jersey yesterday with more than a foot of snow and wind gusts approaching 50 mph.

The storm left 14 inches in High Point, Sussex County, while 12 inches were reported in Lebanon, Hunterdon County, 11.5 inches in Mount Olive, Morris County, 4.8 inches in Hackettstown, Warren County, and 1.2 inches in Hillsborough, Somerset County.

In New Brunswick, where 1.5 inches fell, it was the first measurable snowfall in October in 36 years and only the fifth in October since record-keeping began in 1894, state climatologist David Robinson said.

"We're talking about a one in 20- or 25-year event in the lower elevations of New Jersey," he said. "There's no question this will go down as one of the more memorable October snows for the state as a whole."

Only about a month removed from the seventh-warmest New Jersey summer in recorded history, a wet snow cracked tree branches still heavy with leaves and downed power lines.

At midday, more than 62,000 Jersey Central Power & Light customers from Morris, Sussex, Warren, Hunterdon and Essex counties were without power. Power had been restored to about 7,000 homes by early evening, and officials said they hoped to restore power to the remaining homes last night.

"We are hopping," JCP&L spokeswoman Hannah Massaquoi said as the phone rang in the background.

Wet stretches of Route 80 West in western Morris County were closed for several hours. The speed limit on the New Jersey Turnpike was reduced to 45 mph between Westampton and Mansfield townships in Burlington County to allow trucks to salt the roadways.

In anticipation of the storm, the state Department of Transportation started salting the roads in northwest New Jersey around midnight. The state had up to 60 trucks on the roads in Morris, Somerset, Sussex, Hunterdon and Warren counties yesterday, said Erin Phalon, a DOT spokeswoman.

"It's an October surprise," Phalon said. "We usually don't see such significant snow falling until after Thanksgiving."

Michele Mount, a spokeswoman for AAA of New Jersey, said the agency had to stop its busy emergency road service in parts of Morris County because of the snow.

"It's tough for a tow truck to gain traction," Mount said.

Several schools in Sussex and Morris counties canceled afternoon classes. The Washington Township school district in Morris County held most students yesterday afternoon until conditions improved.

Temperatures were in the 30s and low 40s, which felt more like the 20s with the wind chill, National Weather Service meteorologist Anthony Gigi said from his office in Mount Holly, Burlington County. Wind gusts of 47 mph were reported at Millville Airport and were expected to peak between 6 and 8 last night, when the concern would switch to freezing roadways.

Temperatures aren't supposed to be much warmer today, only reaching to a high of about 48 - 10 degrees cooler than normal.

So, an early snow portends a heavy snowfall this winter, right?

Not exactly, said Robinson.

After eight-tenths of an inch fell in New Brunswick in October 1972, just 2.6 more inches fell the rest of the winter, well below the average 28 inches per winter.

"In other words," Robinson said, "there is no rhyme or reason to an early season snowfall."